Nanna

Gill Hutchings

'My dear Harry,

I want to come home but am not well enough to get there. I cried all night and wanted you badly. This room is so like the one at home, I can't understand how I came to be here, and I long to be back home and safe with you. I’m so confused I cry and cry – whatever is wrong with me? I’m so frightened Harry and wish you were here. I really believe I’ll die if you can’t come to me.'

'Dear Dad,

If anything happens to me tonight the people downstairs will be responsible. I have reason to believe they are going to attack me. I hope I’m mistaken but I am very frightened Dad, the woman downstairs is ruthless. I shall put up a fight but haven’t much hope.'

These frantic notes on scraps of paper to her long dead father and late husband show my poor mothers' torment and paranoia when she was in the 'Rest Home'.

It had all begun when, as a surprise for her 80th birthday in 1990, all the family - 2 daughters and 6 grandchildren - gathered at her home in Wales. A smart, proud lady, she had lived alone since Dad died in 1976, giving piano lessons to children at her home, to supplement her meagre pension. Usually smart and tidy, she had no make-up on and a very old cardigan over her old clothes. We thought it strange, but dismissed it as unimportant. However we all noticed she was a bit vague, obviously old age was affecting her memory.

Gradually she became more vague each time we visited, and we would find burnt saucepans and broken plates in the dustbin, and this fiercely house proud lady was not keeping the house clean. She refused to come and stay with us because 'I can’t let my pupils down'.

Then I had a phone call from her wonderful next door neighbour Vera,  to say that she had been admitted to hospital. Vera had found her in bed fully clothed at lunch time, and Mum had not recognised her kind neighbour. The doctor diagnosed her with Alzheimer's disease and sent her to the local geriatric hospital.

This was the start of what became for her, and us, a nightmare.

At this time my sister had suffered a severe heart attack, so could do nothing to help. My husband and I drove the 150 miles from Bournemouth as fast as we could, collected her and her belongings, and brought her home with us.

Mum would not settle, and was constantly packing to go home, as 'my pupils will be waiting for me'. Needless to say, we had informed the few pupils she had left (many had stopped coming as they realised she was not herself), that she would be unable to teach again. She was extremely agitated, and would appear in our bedroom in the middle of the night wailing 'I don’t know where I am'. I made large notices around the house, pointing to the toilet, lounge and her bedroom, but she seemed unable to understand them. We had to keep the front door double locked as she kept going out and getting lost.

I tried to explain gently to her that she had a memory problem, at which point she lashed out at me, yelling 'there’s nothing wrong with MY memory'. She became very abusive, and I spent many hours crying over the hurtful things she’d do and say to me. I knew it wasn’t really my mum any more, but her aggression was very hard to bear.

Eventually we couldn’t cope any longer; my husband had a bad heart, and I was at the end of my tether. So came the dreadful day, etched on my mind forever, when I took her into a Rest Home. I couldn’t bear to put her into a nursing home – I thought she’d have more chance of making friends and settling home in a Rest Home. It proved a nightmare for the home, for Mum and for us!

She declared it was a nice hotel, but she had to get home to her pupils! She was ready and packed every day when I visited her after work. All bags, even the bin liner were removed from her room, but resourceful as ever, she’d tie all her clothes up in the bed sheet, Dick Whittington style! It was my daily chore to unpack it all, remake the bed and explain that the doctor wasn’t willing for her to leave 'til her legs were better'. (She had mild arthritis, which we used as our constant excuse). Mum forgot that five minutes later, and I would repeat it all again and again and again.

It was not part of the Rest Homes' remit to give personal hygiene care, so I would give her a bath once a week, which she always enjoyed. Undressing her, I’d find she had about six vests on and several pairs of pants; it was as if the gramophone needle had stuck on ‘put my vest on’ until there were no more in the drawer! Getting her out of the bath was a mammoth struggle – she was no lightweight – and looking back I’m surprised I dared risk the manoeuvre. I was always exhausted by the effort.

Her aggression also turned against the other residents, whom she declared were stealing from her. She would hide things all over the place, and I would find her glasses under the mattress, her teeth on top of the wardrobe, and once she secreted her carriage clock inside another residents’ pillow case, much to that ladys’ alarm.

Her poor mind was in turmoil. I was always finding scraps of paper with messages on such as 'please help me, I’m being held prisoner', 'please tell the police my money’s been stolen' etc, and her agitation seemed uncontrollable.

Once she managed to ‘escape’ by getting through a hole in the hedge. The police found her wandering. 'trying to get to Portsmouth' (her childhood home). They guessed the situation and returned her to her ‘hotel’. I stopped taking her out for trips because she would refuse to go back in and demand to be taken home. It became a battle I could not cope with.

Finally a place came up in a beautiful Masonic Home in Wales, and we drove her there one cold November day. Mum absolutely refused to go in, and eventually a member of staff, seeing the problem, came over to the car. 'Hello' he said. 'We’ve been waiting for you to come'. She retorted rudely 'Well you can wait, I’m not coming'. Finally he persuaded her to 'at least come and see how I’ve redecorated your room'. Truculently she followed him, and he left us in her lovely room. She felt tricked, understandably, and released a diatribe of invective against me….'the cruellest, wickedest daughter a mother ever had'. It was terribly upsetting, and finally leaving her there, I cried all the way back to Bournemouth.

In spite of it being beautiful, more like a 4-star hotel, Mum wouldn’t settle, and constantly tried to get out and go home. After a few weeks they couldn’t cope with her and sent her to the local mental hospital, to try and stabilise her on a tranquillising drug. Oddly she seemed reasonably content when I visited her there, in spite of the manic screaming and odd behaviour of her fellow patients.

They sent her back to the Masonic Home eventually, but she continued to be a  disruptive influence there, and one day I had a phone call to say she was back in the mental hospital, having tried to strangle a resident who she said was sitting in ‘her’ chair. They said they would not take her back again.

So began another search for a suitable, this time Nursing Home in Bournemouth, and we transferred her there 14 months after her reluctant move to the Masonic Home. Once again I was going daily after work to see her, and my dear, long suffering husband was neglected. He was marvellous with Mum, and a pillar of strength to me, but not a well man. I was so preoccupied with settling Mum in, that I failed to notice his deterioration, and one day four weeks later, I came home from work to find him dead in the armchair – a shock I struggled hard to cope with.

Mum eventually settled down fairly well in her new ‘hotel’ and was less agitated and less violent towards me, but rarely knew who I was. She would declare solemnly statements like 'custard is out of fashion', 'tucking your skirt into your knickers is illegal', 'the dog is coming here today to have his teeth filled'. It was impossible to follow her train of thought. I would laugh and she would laugh with me not knowing what was funny.

Mum still worried about getting home to her pupils, but now could be placated more easily by the (constant) reply that the doctor wanted her to convalesce a little longer.

I continued to visit her most days, taking my ‘mum bag’ containing an assortment of items for her comfort, including a kettle, tea bags, toiletries for a ‘facial’, sewing kit, nail scissors, and tweezers, which often sparked off her aggression, and little treats, (in spite of her increasing weight due to lack of exercise) of trifles, cream cakes and chocolate, which she loved.

Gradually she became a vague but reasonably content old lady as her faculties diminished. She was polite and grateful to ‘the people who come to see me’, not recognising any of us. It was heart-breaking not to be known, but a relief that the terrible torment seemed to be over at last.

Mum lived there for three years before dying  peacefully in her sleep. The most difficult and traumatic five years of my life, and hers, were over.